Faith in God or Faith in Feelings?
The faith that moves mountains is the goal of every Christian. I want to face every difficulty with the concrete assurance that “in everything God works for good with those who love Him.” (Romans 8:28) I want to lay all my problems and fears at the foot of the cross and skip away in complete peace that I need not spend anymore time worrying about them. I have seen major growth in this over the years, but it has not come easily. There are still times I find myself attempting to sneak a worry or two back from God’s hands.
Some people have taken today’s reading to mean that we can treat God like a vending machine of blessings, but there are no secret words that will force His hand or change His will to compare to our own. Warren Wiersbe commented, “Nor should we interpret Mark 11:24 to mean, ‘If you pray hard enough and really believe, God is obligated to answer your prayer no matter what you ask.’ That kind of faith is not faith in God; rather it is nothing but faith in faith, or faith in feelings.” It extends our self-centeredness and gives it a spiritual flare without any spiritual growth. “Name it and claim it” teaches people that we have the power to manipulate God. This simply and emphatically is not true.
If we believe we will receive simply because we asked, we miss the point of our relationship with our God. The correct attitude has to be one of humility and submission. James 4:2-4 tells us, “You desire and do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. Unfaithful creatures! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” The motivation behind our asking matters, as does our belief in God’s ability to fulfill His will. Think of it like our cars. Our faith is the fuel we put in the vehicle because we believe the vehicle will do what it was created to do. We would not put fuel in our car and expect it to fly. That isn’t the purpose of the vehicle. We pray and have faith that God will fulfill His promises, but if we pray and have faith that God will fulfill our desires, we will be as disappointed as those who expect their sedan to take flight.
Nothing is out of the possibility when we are talking about God. He created the world and everything in it. The human body answers to His design. The natural world bends to His will. Demons submit to His word, and mountains fall into the sea at the gentle wave of His hand. Prayer with faith is a powerful thing. Faith is expectation in the fulfillment of God’s will. Anything less is second best.
(Written by Keegan Harkins.)
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